


Forgive My Nature

by dwight_from_the_office



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Adult Alex Rider, F/M, Gen, Love, Marriage, Mental Health Issues, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwight_from_the_office/pseuds/dwight_from_the_office
Summary: Nothing in Alex's life could ever be simple, even when he was so sure.
Relationships: Alex Rider/OFC, Tom Harris & Alex Rider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Forgive My Nature

“I really like her, Tom. I mean, _really_ like her.”

Tom glanced up from where he was stirring sang har to smile at Alex, pleased. “Oh?” He was so glad to see Alex swept up in love like this. After Sabina, Tom was worried he would never try again; it had taken so much just to get him to pursue Sabina in the first place. 

But seemingly, time healed. Alex lost her at 19. Now 28, he was infatuated with another girl, far more than he had been infatuated with Sabina. The girl’s name was Lin. She was very sweet, with gentle words and warm eyes and skin like the petals of a flower. Lin was American but grew up in a household that spoke Korean, evident in her accent, which held artful fluctuations of tone and space and color. She was bloody brilliant, too. Tom didn’t know exactly how university in America worked, but he was confident that a double major in neurosurgery and psychology was no easy feat. Lin was 26––just two years younger than Alex––and already had a very promising career in medical research coming her way.

Alex loved her for all of these things. Tom loved her, too. He would never say it out loud, but finding a girl knowledgeable in both medicine and psychology was probably the best thing that could have happened to Alex. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I really…” Alex swallowed, voice thick. “I think I’d like to marry her.”

Tom’s hand stilled where it held the bamboo spoon against the pan. “You think so?”

Of course, nothing slipped past Alex. “You don’t think I should?” And Tom didn’t have to be looking at Alex to see barely concealed confusion and hurt flash across his face. After all of these years, the subtle expression was as familiar to Tom as the back of his own hand.

“Now, I didn’t say that.”

“But were you thinking it?”

Tom deemed the sang har ready and shut off the burner. He scraped the noodles onto two plates in equal parts and brought them to the table. Placing one in front of Alex, Tom said, “I know you love Lin enough to marry her. And I’m sure that if you were to propose, she would say yes. But you know that Lin marrying _you_ would be much different than if Lin married any other chap.”

Alex didn’t bother hiding the faint pain in his expression. “I know. But, Tom, I’ve been out for years. I’ve not been contacted by MI6 except for checks in since–since _Toronto_. No MI6, no assassins, no one. I went to uni. I-I have a job, a real, proper job. I’m _normal_ now.”

Tom looked him in the eyes. “Alex. You know it’s more complicated than that.”

The blond man held Tom’s gaze for a moment before putting his face in his hands. Tom reached out a gentle hand to place on Alex’s arm. “It’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just that you need to think about these things––life altering decisions like _marriage_ ––very carefully, more carefully than anyone else.”

Gaze fluttering around the room, Alex lifted one hand away from his face and waved it. _Go on_ , Tom understood.

Tom looked Alex in the eyes, though the other man wouldn’t meet his. He faltered, suddenly unsure how to put his concerns. “Your entire past is a secret to her. How much does Lin know, really? You do signal processing? You’re sarcastic as hell? You’d rather die than eat peas?”

“Just when they’re cooked,” Alex muttered, humor playing at the far corner of his lips. “I’d eat sugar snaps all day.”

Tom huffed out a laugh and gently shoved Alex’s shoulder. “Shut up, I’m trying to be serious here.”

Alex smiled and ducked his head before sobering, glancing up at Tom for a moment, which he took as the OK to go on. 

“I know she’s been fantastic about your privacy and your comfort. But in marriage… Do you want all that to stay a secret? Would she want more detail? Would it be safe or safer to tell her a little more? Your past is horrific, Alex. I don’t think it would be fair to Lin to keep it secret, but I understand if you want to. If you’re going to lie to her, you have to be sure that that’s what you want to do. You run the risk of unconscious trust issues, or conflict if your family found out… This is something Lin might want to pursue herself, without telling you first.”

Alex’s complexion grew ashy at the implication. Tom sympathized. Lin poking around, not knowing where she was stepping, meeting people she couldn’t understand but who knew exactly who she was… Tom recalled visions of Alex, years ago, investigating similarly. Alex slipping deeper and deeper, unable to find the traction to pull himself out. Tom looking on helplessly as his best friend paid for satisfying his curiosity in a long, long line of events that Tom had been complicit in. 

Lin was Tom’s best friend, too. He couldn’t watch it happen again. Not to her.

Tom leaned forwards in his seat, fingers laced together, and fixed Alex with the most compelling look of which he was capable. “Lin knows  _ you _ , but what does she know  _ about _ you? I’m asking.”

The blond man leaned forward in his seat and laced his fingers together on the table. “Okay, ah, I went to Cambridge. I...speak several languages. I’ve got no biological or legal family left. I lived in America for a few months. I’ve got some scarring…”

Tom nodded. “Good start. Let’s break it down. Which languages does she know you speak?”

“English, obviously… She knows about French since I’ve been teaching her...and about Catalan since that trip to Barce… I think she knows about Spanish? Probably?”

Tom closed his eyes, the most amused grin taking him over. Alex shoved a forkful of noodles into his mouth and punched his arm. Tom jumped and rubbed the offended appendage. “Hey, hey! What’d I do?”

“Stop _laughing_ at me!”

Tom snorted. “So she doesn’t know you speak German? Russian?” Alex shook his head. “Well then there’s no way she knows about the Arabic or Chinese or Tagalog or… What else do speak?”

Alex couldn’t help but smile, throwing his head back and groaning at the ceiling. “I get it. She doesn’t know that I’m _very_ multilingual. You can stop now.”

Tom held his hands up in surrender, a tilted smile lingering on his face.

“Good work on the sang har,” Alex mentioned, nodding at his plate.

“What can I say? I learned from the best.” Tom grinned as he rolled his eyes to hide the bashful look. He really was almost as fantastic a teacher as he was a chef, but Tom couldn’t resist teasing him. “Yeah, that Gordon Ramsey MasterClass is really fantastic– _Hey_ !” He cried out as Alex spilled water onto Tom’s platter, being completely obvious and deliberate even when he undeniably could have made it look _completely_ accidental–

“That’s my dinner, you arse!”

Alex shrugged. “Oops.”

Tom snarled. “Oh, _you_ …” He took his own glass and emptied it over Alex’s crotch. He hissed as the icy water seeped through his clothing, looking back up at Tom with the nastiest, most terrifying grin. Suddenly, Tom remembered just exactly who his best friend was and wondered if it was really the right course of action to provoke him.

“It’s _on_.”

Nope, nope, definitely the _wrong_ course of action. Tom sprung out of his seat and shot to the sink. Alex was right behind him, and suddenly the two were grappling over the detachable head, not minding as the freezing spray began to soak the window and floors. Tom grunted as he put all of his strength into keeping his fingers curled around the hose, but it was a losing battle. A split-second decision had him ducking under Alex’s arms, sink forgotten, and scampering toward the back door, socks sliding dangerously over wood. He didn’t bother minding the damp grass; he was doomed to be soaked, anyways. Tom had just barely dashed around the corner of the house when Alex peeked outside and figured out what he was doing. By then, it was too late. Tom jumped out with the garden hose in hand. In a matter of seconds, Alex was dripping from head to toe, arms brought up and shoulders tensed. His mouth was frozen in a gaping smile, amusedly shocked and reeling from the cold.

“I win,” Tom said simply, shutting off the spray and holding the hose lazily in one hand.

Hours later, Tom snuggled into his sheets. Alex was already asleep on the other side of the room, changed into sweatpants and dried. _We’re actual adults,_ he thought with a snort. Adults who had bills to pay and jobs to work. It always made him wonder how they managed to get into these squabbles. What had even happened this time?

Water tipping over. Gordon Ramsay. Sang har.

And before that?

Tom glanced over at Alex’s sleeping form, turned onto his side and arm thrown over his head. 

_Oh, you fucker._

And before that, a conversation that Alex had clearly been trying to avoid.

* * *

“Let’s try this again.”

“Try what again?” Alex asked innocently, barely shifting his attention from the morning news pulled up on his tablet.

“You got out of talking about this yesterday. Not today. I won’t be distracted.”

Alex rolled his eyes and waved a hand before taking a sip of his morning coffee. “Get on with it. No beating about the bush like yesterday.”

Tom looked at him for a minute, unsure that Alex was actually paying attention. But he knew that something this important would be impossible for Alex to tune out. So Tom jumped right in.

“What if she wants kids? Kids means you have to share your body with her. Do you think you’ll be able to do that? How much of yourself will you give her? Your love, a-and your mistakes, and your past? She deserves to know. I understand if you want to lie to her and I’ll support you in whatever you choose, but at the very least, she needs to understand how much you aren’t telling her. Her family might have questions, her parents. You have to be okay with knowing that their opinion of you might pull a 180 if they ever found out.”

“About my past or about the fact that I lied to them?”

Tom looked at him helplessly. “They might understand if you told them that you wanted to keep your past in your past. They might respect that. Knowing Lin, they _would_ respect that.”

“We talked about this already. What are you really concerned about?”

“Can you lay next to her at night and give her your heart? Do you feel comfortable doing that or will it scare you off? Because from where I stand, giving her your body looks far easier for you than expressing the extent of your love and that's saying something. Can you give yourself to her? All of it?”

Alex looked hurt. “I don’t have trouble expressing love!”

Tom hated to call his best mate out like this, but he had to. It was his job. “To date, the only person who I’ve ever known you to say “I love you” to is Jack.”

Alex snarled, but Tom was not to be deterred.

“Not Ian, not me, not Sabina, and not Lin. And however much you like to deny it, that’s why she left you. I know Lin loves you and that you love Lin. But does Lin _know_ how much you love her? Have you told her? Trust is built on gestures and words together. You miss just one of those and there’s space for doubt. It’s what happened with my parents _and_ with Jerry and Anne, okay? I know what I’m talking about. ”

Alex looked annoyed, now. “Then why are you still here, huh? You admitted it; I’ve never said anything like that to you, and you’re still around.”

Tom restrained a growl. “That’s a stupid question and you know it. You and I don’t have to _talk_ because I’ve known you longer than anyone else you’ve ever met and I love you enough not to push you out of your comfort zone for my own sake.”

“You have no right to say that. Lin loves me just as much as you do.”

“I _know_ she loves you!” Tom hissed. “But she doesn’t _know you_! She can’t take care of you! What will you do about the nightmares? About the scars? About your medications and your protective measures? How can she help you when she doesn’t even know what the problems are? Do you _know_ how much it _hurts_ not to be able to help someone you love that much? Just to have to watch them suffer and you haven’t got a clue what to do?”

“Oh, so now _I’m_ the bad guy. Thanks, Tom, you’re really clearing this up for me–”

“Shut _up_ , Alex! There doesn’t have to be a bad guy for there to be a problem! You misunderstand that again, and again, and again! If you and Lin do this, you’ll be without support and it’ll leave Lin suffering. This _ruined_ you and Sabina. I won’t let it ruin your relationship with Lin. You’re not _ready_ for marriage–”

“So what do you want, then? Do you expect me to break up with her?”

“Alex, no–”

“Because I’m not going to keep her tied to a relationship that can’t progress. She deserves marriage. Maybe– Maybe _I don’t_ but she does a-and–”

Tom couldn’t stand it. He stepped forwards and wrapped his friend as best as he could in his arms. Alex might have been three inches taller than him and far stronger, but he might as well have been holding a child. The loud echoes of their raised voices sunk into the walls and disappeared. The only sound remaining was Alex’s soft gasps as the most meager of tears made their way down his face in narrow cuts. It didn’t take long for him to hug Tom back, clinging to him as if he were about to collapse.”

“But I-I _love_ her, Tom. God, I love her so much–” A sharp inhale and shaky exhale. “I want to be with her but I don’t know how to live without you a-and I’m so _confused_ –”

Tom gripped Alex together as he dissolved a little further into his tears. 

“ _I don’t know what to do_.”

Tom carefully eased them down onto the sofa as one body. He wrapped one leg around Alex’s waist and pulled the blond head into his chest, carefully placing it under his chin. Tom breathed deeply and gently dragged his thumb across his best friend’s trembling shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Tom murmured, his own eyes growing misty as he pressed his cheek to the top of Alex’s head. “I promise we’ll figure it out.” He couldn’t be sure whether or not Alex had heard.

The next day, Alex stopped him in the hallway by grabbing his arm as they passed each other. He turned his head to meet Tom’s eyes.

“I need to tell her.”

Tom stalled for a moment. “Alex, y- What?”

“She’d want to know, and we won’t work right as a married couple with that big a hole in my past.”

“That’s not what I–”

“Doesn’t matter what you meant. It’s what’s true. At least for me.”

A beat. He was proud of Alex’s decision, but it held a lot of gravity. “How are you going to do it?”

Alex shifted his gaze away from Tom. “I’ve got the OSA covered and I know what I want to tell her, and from there we can figure out what we want her parents to know. But I…”

“Alex?”

“Will you come with me? When I explain.”

Tom let out a soft puff of a breath and smiled. “Of course. Whatever you need, mate.” After a beat, he turned to continue down the hall, but Alex grabbed him again. Before he could ask what was the matter, the other man pulled Tom into a brief hug.

“I love you too.”


End file.
